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HEALTH 
HEROES 


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Florence  Nightingale 

METROPOLITAN  LIFE  INSURANCE  COMPANY 

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THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 

GIFT  OF 


DR.  AND  MRS.  ELMER  BELT 


HEALTH    HEROES 


Florence 
Nightingale 


By 
Grace  T.  Hallock,  coauthor  of 
Growing  Up,  the  Safe  and  Healthy 
Living  series,  and  other  health  books 

and 

C.  E.  Turner,  Professor  Emeritus  of 
Public  Health,  Massachusetts  Insti' 
tute  of  Technology. 


Copyright,  1928,  by 
Grace  T.  Hallock  and  C.  E.  Turner 


Grateful  ac\nowledgment  is  made  to 
the  following  publishers  for  permis-' 
sion  to  copy  pictures: 

The  Macmillan  Company  for  por' 
trait  of  Florence  Nightingale  from 
The  Life  of  Florence  Jiightingale, 
Vol.  I,  by  A.  T.  Cook,  and  for  a 
scene  from  Florence  from  A  Wan^ 
derer  in  Florence  by  E.  V.  Lucas; 
G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons  for  pictures 
from  A  History  of  A[ursmg  by  Nut' 
TING  and  Dock;  Underwood  and 
Underwood  for  picture  of  Florence 
Nightingale  as  a  young  girl  from 
A  Modern  World  Setting  for  Amer- 
ican History  by  Jones  and  Sleman. 


(Edition  of  January  1948) 


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Florence 

Nightingale 

1520-1910 


LITTLE  more  than  100  years  ago,  a  wealthy 
Englishman  and  his  wife  were  traveling  in 
Italy.  Europe  had  then  become  safe  for  trav- 
elers because  the  wars  of  Napoleon  had  come 
to  an  end  at  last.  In  1820,  this  couple,  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
William  Nightingale,  and  their  little  daughter.  Par- 
THENOPE,  were  in  the  city  of  Florence.  There,  on  May 
12,  another  daughter  was  born  to  the  Nightingales. 
She  was  named  for  her  birthplace.  Thirty-four  years  later 
the  whole  world  was  to  hear  the  name  of  Florence 
Nightingale. 


METROPOLITAN  LIFE  INSURANCE  COMPANY 

From  the  time  she  was  5  years  old  Florence  had  two 
homes  in  England.  One  was  Lea  Hurst,  near  the  quaint 
village  of  Lea  in  Derbyshire.  The  other  was  Embley  Park, 
near  Romsey,  on  the  edge  of  the  New  Forest. 

Both  homes  were  surrounded  with  beautiful  old  trees 
and  flower  gardens.  Florence  loved  flowers  and  birds 
and  animals.  She  loved  babies,  too,  and  although  there 
were  none  in  her  own  family,  she  had  a  great  many  little 
cousins  in  whose  teethings  and  baby  illnesses  she  was 
greatly  interested. 


The  City  of  Florence, 

birthplace  of  Florence  Nightingale 


ft '^ 


^4^^^^ 


HEALTH  HEROES— FLORENCE  NIGHTINGALE 


Florence  Nightingale 
at  8  years  of  age 


Education 

Florence  was  given  a   better 

education  than  was  at  that  time 

thought  suitable  for  young  ladies. 

To  be  sure,  she  and  her  sister  learned 

.  all    the    usual    female    accomplish- 

Jk.  «^  .  ments.    They  were  taught  to  use  a 

\       1 1  \    globe,    to   copy   out  ''elegant   ab- 

T\     J  stracts''  from  various  writers,  to  em- 

/       /  ^^   broider  slippers  and  footstools,  and 

\  ' tf'^"'^^^"""^       to   do   other   fancy   work.      They 

|.  studied  music,   grammar,   composi- 

^  tion  and  modern  languages.     Mr. 

Nightingale  himself  added  to  this 

learning  by  teaching  his  daughters 

Latin,  Greek,  mathematics  and  history. 

Florence  was  a  good  student  and  a  quick  one. 
By  the  time  she  was  17,  she  had  read  a  truly  formidable 
list  of  books  in  both  modern  and  ancient  languages.  Her 
father  had  trained  her  to  think  clearly  and  to  concentrate 
her  mind  on  what  she  had  to  do.  This  training  was  to 
help  her  greatly  in  later  years  when  quick,  clear  thinking 
meant  the  saving  of  lives.  Florence  was  taught,  as  well, 
the  usual  manners  and  graces,  which  prepared  her  to  take 
her  place  in  the  social  world.  She  and  her  sister  spent 
a  season  abroad  and  were  then  presented  at  court. 
Florence  was  not  beautiful,  but  she  possessed  charm  and 
distinction,  and  was  a  good,  even  a  witty  talker. 

5 


METROPOLITAN  LIFE  INSURANCE  COMPANY 

Unhappiness 

Although  Florence's  life  was  full  and  busy,  both  in 
London  and  at  the  country  houses  of  her  family  and 
friends,  she  was  not  happy.  The  occupations  of  a  young 
lady  of  fashion  could  not  satisfy  her  keen  mind  and  un- 
bounded energy.  The  first  record  we  have  of  her  desire 
to  become  a  nurse  is  found  in  a  conversation  which  she 
had  with  the  husband  of  Julia  Ward  Howe.  In  1844, 
Dr.  and  Mrs.  Howe  were  staying  with  the  Nightingales 
at  Embley.  Florence  said  to  Dr.  Howe:  "If  I  should 
determine  to  study  nursing,  and  to  devote  my  life  to  that 
profession,  do  you  think  it  would  be  a  dreadful  thing?'' 

Dr.  Howe  replied:  ""Not  a  dreadful  thing  at  all.  I 
think  It  would  be  a  very  good  thing.'' 

But  to  Florence's  parents  and  sister  it  did  seem  a 
dreadful  thing.  In  every  way  possible  they  tried  to  turn 
Florence  from  her  idea.  But  so  definite  was  that  idea 
that,  shortly  after  her  talk  with  Dr.  Howe,  the  freedom 
to  nurse  sick  people  became  Florence  Nightingale's 
strongest  desire. 

It  is  hard  for  us  today  to  visualise  what  nursing  was 
like  in  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century.  Many 
nurses  were  untrained,  coarse,  ignorant  women.  Some- 
times they  were  actually  cruel  to  their  patients.  As  a 
result,  most  hospitals  in  England,  Scotland  and  Ireland 
were  places  of  dirt  and  misery  and  needless  suffering. 
Florence's  family  felt  that  they  could  not  allow  her  to  go 
into  such  conditions  as  these. 

She  was  bitterly  disappointed  when  her  mother  re- 
fused to  let  her  enter  a  hospital  for  training.  To  distract 
her  mind,  her  family  sent  her  abroad  with  friends.  Wher- 
ever she  went  she  visited  hospitals  and  learned  what  she 
could  of  organisation  and  methods  of  nursing. 


HEALTH  HEROES— FLORENCE  NIGHTINGALE 


Happiness 

At  this  point  in  the  life  of  Florence  Nightingale 
came  the  first  test  of  the  quality  of  her  determination. 
Persistence  met  opposition  and  conquered.  Vain  were 
the  attempts  of  Florence's  family  to  lure  her  from  her 
purpose  by  offering  the  distractions  of  travel  and  the 
gayeties  of  social  life.  In  1851,  she  entered  the  Deaconess 
School  at  Kaiserwerth  in  Germany  for  a  short  term  of 
training  as  a  nurse.  The  life  there  was  hard  and  bleak, 
but  Florence  Nightingale  gloried  in  it.  She  wrote  her 
mother:  ''This  is  Life!  I  wish  for  no  other  earth,  no 
other  world  but  this.'' 

After  this  beginning  there  was  no  holding  Florence 
Nightingale  back.  She  had  started  toward  the  realizia- 
tion  of  her  desire.  It  was  to  be  a  long,  hard  way,  but  her 
persistence  was  not  to  be  denied. 

In  1853,  Florence  Nightingale  took  her  first ''situa- 
tion." She  became  the  Superintendent  of  an  Establish- 
ment for  Gentlewomen  During  Illness,  in  London.  The 
fact  that  her  patients  were  to  be  "  gentlewomen"  partly 
reconciled  her  family,  but,  even  so,  her  mother  did  not 
understand  her.  With  tears  in  her  eyes,  Mrs.  Nightin- 
gale said:"  We 
are  ducks  and 
have  hatched  a 
wild  swan." 


The  Kaiserwerth 
Training  School, 
Germany 


METROPOLITAN  LIFE  INSURANCE  COMPANY 


Map  showing  seat  of  war 


Outbreak  of  the  Crimean  War 

Florence  Nightingale  had  been  a  year  in  her 
situation  when,  in  1854,  the  Crimean  War  broke  out. 
Russia,  with  an  eye  on  Constantinople,  had  seized  some 
Turkish  provinces  on  the  Danube.  This  did  not  suit 
France  and  England,  as  it  threatened  their  interests  in  the 
East.  They  joined  Turkey  in  a  war  on  Russia,  and  the 
battleground  was  the  Crimea,  a  small  peninsula  thrust 
out  into  the  Black  Sea.  There  the  fleets  of  the  allied 
powers  landed  their  troops,  and  there,  in  September,  1854, 
was  fought  the  first  great  battle  of  the  war,  the  battle  of 
the  Alma  River.  The  allies  were  victorious  and  England 
went  wild  with  joy. 

The  Call 

But  the  rejoicing  quickly  changed  to  mourning.  The 
number  of  the  killed  and  wounded  was  very  large  and 
presently  charges  of  neglect  toward  the  sick  and  wounded 
in  the  military  hospital  at  Scutari  were  published  in  a 
London  newspaper.  There  was  one  woman  in  England 
who  was  ready,  experienced  in  nursing,  and  anxious  to 


HEALTH  HEROES— FLORENCE  NIGHTINGALE 


serve,  who  could  come  to  England's  help  in  this  hour  of 
desperate  need.  Fortunately  there  was  one  Englishman 
who  knew  it.  Their  letters  to  each  other  crossed  in  the 
mail.  One  letter  was  from  Florence  Nightingale  offer- 
ing to  go  to  the  Crimea  with  a  party  of  nurses.  The 
other  was  from  her  friend,  Sidney  Herbert,  the  Secretary 
of  War,  asking  her  to  go. 

Within  five  days  from  the  time  that  each  one  had 
accepted  the  other's  offer,  Florence  Nightingale,  with 
a  party  of  thirty-eight  nurses,  was  on  her  way  to  Scutari, 
the  place  opposite  Constantinople  where  the  military 
hospitals  were  located.  She  left  in  a  great  burst  of  en- 
thusiasm. This  Florence  Nightingale,  of  whom  most 
people  had  never  heard  five  days  before,  had  become  a 
popular  heroine. 

At  Marseilles,  Florence  Nightingale  laid  in  a  large 
stock  of  supplies.  She  did  this  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  she 
had  been  assured  at  the  War  Office  that  nothing  was 
needed  for  the  comfort  of  the  wounded  soldiers.  She  and 
her  nurses  arrived  at  Scutari  on  November  4,  1854,  ten 
days  after  the  battle  of  Balaklava,  and  the  day  before  the 
battle  of  Inkerman.  They  were  given  quarters  in  one 
tower  of  the  Barrack  Hospital,  the  chief  hospital  used  in 
the  Crimean  War. 

The  Military  Hospitals 

Dark  as  the  picture  of  conditions  in  the  military 
hospitals  had  been  painted  in  newspaper  reports,  the 
reality  turned  out  to  be  darker  still.  Florence  Nightin- 
gale had  longed  for  a  job  equal  to  her  ability  and  energy. 
Now  she  had  one.  Her  tidy  mind  and  her  capable  fingers 
had  always  itched  to  straighten  out  messes  of  any  kind. 
Now,  in  the  hospitals  at  Scutari,  she  found  a  huge  muddle 
complicated  by  entangling  red  tape.  In  her  own  words. 


METROPOLITAN  LIFE  INSURANCE  COMPANY 


she  found  ''The  sanitary  conditions  of  the  hospitals  of 
Scutari  were  inferior  m  point  of  crowding,  ventilation, 
drainage,  and  cleanliness  to  any  civil  hospital,  or  to  the 
poorest  homes  m  the  worst  parts  of  the  civil  population 
of  any  large  town  that  I  have  seen/'  Ordinary  comforts 
for  the  sick  and  wounded  were  lacking  and  necessary 
surgical  and  medical  supplies  were  often  not  forthcoming. 
There  were  not  enough  beds,  ''there  were  no  vessels  for 


Military  Hospital, 
Scutari 


water,  or  utensils  of  any  kind;  no  soap,  no  towels  or 
cloths;  no  hospital  clothes;  no  chairs,  tables,  benches,  nor 
any  other  lamp  or  candlestick  but  a  bottle.''  Often  the 
wounded  men  were  left  lying  in  the  uniforms  they  had 
worn  on  the  battlefield. 

It  was  evident  that  there  had  been  a  complete  break- 
down of  medical  arrangements  at  the  seat  of  war.  No  one 
person  could,  or  would,  assume  responsibility  for  this 
awful  failure.  It  was  not  the  time  to  exclaim,  "What  a 
mess!"  nor  to  ask,  "Whose  fault  is  it?"  That  could  come 
later.  The  only  thing  that  mattered  then  was:  Here  is  a 
job  to  be  done.  Florence  Nightingale  knew,  of  course, 
that  her  position  was  a  delicate  one.  Women  nurses  in  an 

10 


HEALTH  HEROES— FLORENCE  NIGHTINGALE 

army  hospital  were  unheard  of  and  the  prejudices  of  both 
the  medical  and  military  authorities  must  be  overcome. 

She  made  a  good  impression  on  most  of  the  medical 
men  from  the  beginning.  She  was  an  expert  and  they  were 
quick  to  realise  it.  She  obeyed  rules  and  maintained  a 
rigid  discipline  over  her  nurses.  She  never  lost  her 
temper,  she  never  raised  her  voice,  she  was  never  over^ 
bearing,  and  so  she  won  confidence. 

The  Emergency 

The  wounded  from  the  battle  of  Balaklava  began  to 
arrive  shortly  after  the  party  of  nurses  landed.  In  the 
Barrack  hospital  alone  there  were  four  miles  of  wounded 
soldiers  laid  not  eighteen  inches  apart.  The  wounded  lay 
up  to  the  very  door  of  the  nurses'  quarters.  Florence 
Nightingale  wrote  home:  ''Let  no  lady  come  out  here 
who  is  not  used  to  fatigue  and  privation,''  She  herself 
was  known  to  be  on  her  feet  for  twenty  hours  at  a  time. 
Along  with  the  permanent  reform  which  Florence 
Nightingale  made  with  patient  persistence  came  this 
necessity  for  meeting  emergencies. 

Cleanliness 

During  the  Crimean  War,  no  one  dreamed  that  in- 
fections after  surgical  operations,  or  after  wounds  re- 
ceived in  battle,  were  caused  by  tiny  living  organisms.  It 
was  not  until  twenty  years  later  that  Lister  introduced 
antiseptic  methods  in  surgery  by  making  practical  use  of 
the  germ  theory  of  infection  taught  by  Pasteur.  But 
Florence  Nightingale  did  know  that  efficient  nursing 
demands  cleanliness.  She  set  herself  to  supply  this  neces- 
sity. She  found  ''not  a  basin,  nor  a  towel,  nor  a  bit  of 
soap,  nor  a  broom,"  in  the  whole  place.  One  of  the  first 
things  she  asked  for  was  a  supply  of  sacking  and  200  hard 
scrub-brushes  for  washing  the  floors. 

II 


METROPOLITAN  LIFE  INSURANCE  COMPANY 

Up  to  the  time  of  her  arrival  the  largest  number 
of  shirts  washed  in  a  month  had  been  six.  Florence 
Nightingale  installed  a  laundry  at  once  and  employed 
in  it  the  wives  who  had  followed  their  soldier  husbands 
to  the  front. 

Cooking 

After  starting  her  clean-up  campaign,  the  next  thing 
that  Florence  Nightingale  did  was  to  install  ''extra 
diet''  kitchens  with  the  supplies  she  had  laid  in  at  Mar- 
seilles. Gone  at  last  were  the  days  when  sick  and  almost 
famished  men  found  themselves  confronted  with  hunks 
of  meat  or  bone  or  gristle  from  the  thirteen  copper  kettles 
in  which  all  the  food  for  the  hospital  had  been  cooked. 
Now  the  meals  were  well  prepared  and  served  on  time 
and  there  were  delicate  jellies  and  broths  to  be  had  when 
the  doctors  ordered  them  for  their  patients. 

Storekeeping 

Florence  Nightingale  set  up  a  shop  in  a  kitchen  in 
her  tower.  She  was  the  storekeeper,  the  doctors  were 
the  customers,  and  the  patients  the  consumers.  The 
medical  officers  found  that  they  could  get  from  Florence 
Nightingale  necessary  supplies  which  they  could  not 
possibly  procure  from  the  official  purveyor  of  the  army. 

But  Miss  Nightingale's  stores  could  not  last  for- 
ever. As  soon  as  matters  were  somewhat  straightened 
out  at  the  hospital,  she  set  to  work  to  unwind  the  red 
tape  in  which  the  official  stores  sent  out  from  England 
were  hopelessly  entangled.  Articles  from  the  official 
stores  were  supplied  to  the  hospitals  by  the  Purveyor 
only  on  the  requisition  of  a  medical  officer.  The  Pur- 
veyor would  not  unpack  goods  until  they  had  been 
examined  by  the  Board  of  Survey.  This  elaborate  system 
led  to  delays  which  maddened  Florence  Nightingale. 

12 


HEALTH  HEROES— FLORENCE  NIGHTINGALE 


British  private 
soldiers  in  the 
Crimean  War 


Once  she  ordered  a  government  consignment  to  be 
opened  forcibly  while  the  Purveyor  stood  by  wringing 
his  hands  in  fear  of  what  the  Board  would  say.  Some- 
times she  got  the  Board  together  herself  and  forced  it  to 
''sit''  on  supplies  which  were  needed  at  once.  She  did 
not  take  the  report  of  others  as  to  what  was  in  the  store- 
house,  but  went  foraging  there  herself. 

More  often  than  not  what  she  wanted  was  not  there. 
Quantities  of  stores  sent  from  England  lay  in  the  Turkish 
Custom  House.  Supplies  for  the  hospitals,  loaded  under- 
neath the  cargoes  of  shot  and  shell,  were  sometimes  car- 
ried to  and  fro  three  times  over  the  Black  Sea  before 
being  landed  at  Scutari.  Florence  Nightingale  saw  that 
the  whole  system  was  at  fault,  and,  six  months  after  her 
arrival,  she  succeeded  in  having  established,  at  Scutari,  a 
storehouse  for  the  reception  and  distribution  of  supplies. 

13 


METROPOLITAN  LIFE  INSURANCE  COMPANY 

The  Ministering  Angel 

The  military  surgeons,  the  orderlies,  her  own  nurses, 
the  Purveyor,  saw  in  Florence  Nightingale  the  ''im- 
pelling power  of  a  brain  and  a  wilP'  set  to  bring  order  out 
of  the  chaos  in  the  military  hospitals.  But  to  the  sick  and 
wounded  and  to  the  public  at  home,  she  was  known  as  the 
Angel  of  the  Crimea.  At  night  when  the  medical  officers 
had  gone  to  bed  and  darkness  and  silence  had  settled  down 
on  those  miles  of  prostrate  sick,  she  might  be  seen,  alone 
with  a  lamp  in  her  hand,  making  her  solitary  rounds.  One 
boy  wrote  home  in  a  letter  which  became  famous : 

What  a  comfort  it  was  to  see  her  pass,  even.  She  would 
speak  to  one  and  nod  and  smile  to  as  many  more ;  but  she  could 
not  do  it  all,  you  know.  We  lay  there  by  hundreds,  but  we 
could  kiss  her  shadow  as  it  fell,  and  lay  our  heads  on  the  pillow 
again  content. 

The  men  adored  her.  They  saluted  her  as  she  passed 
down  the  wounded  ranks.  ''Before  she  came,''  said  one 
soldier,  "there  was  cussin'  and  s wearing  but  after  that  it 
was  'oly  as  a  church.''  Another,  who  had  lost  a  leg  at  the 
Alma  River  said,  "If  the  Queen  came  for  to  die,  they 
ought  to  make  her  Queen,  and  I  think  they  would." 

They  wrote  home  for  her.  They  saved  their  money 
for  her.  They  went  through  painful  operations  without  a 
murmur  for  her.  She  called  them  "her  children,"  and  the 
dead  to  her  became  "the  heroic  dead." 

With  all  her  other  duties,  Florence  Nightingale 
carried  on  a  huge  correspondence.  Late  at  night  when  the 
hospital  was  in  darkness,  she  sat  at  her  small  unpainted 
table  and  wrote  the  dying  messages  of  soldiers  to  their 
relatives,  long  reports  to  ministers  at  home  and  to  military 
and  medical  officials  at  the  seat  of  war.  She  filled  page 
after  page  with  recommendations,  suggestions,  criticisms, 
statistics,  and  storekeeping  accounts. 

14 


HEALTH  HEROES— FLORENCE  NIGHTINGALE 

Results 

Six  months  after  Florence  Nightingale's  arrival,  the 
results  of  her  activity  were  clearly  apparent.  Order  and 
cleanliness  reigned  in  the  wards.  The  hospitals  were 
better  supplied.  Sanitary  improvements,  so  important 
that  Florence  Nightingale  said  they  had  saved  the 
British  Army,  had  been  carried  out.  Most  remarkable 
of  all,  the  death  rate  among  the  cases  treated  had  fallen 
progressively  from  420  a  thousand  in  February,  1855,  to 
twentytwo  a  thousand  in  June,  1855. 


The  Lady 
of  the  Lamp 


15 


METROPOLITAN  LIFE  INSURANCE  COMPANY 

In  the  Crimea 

Not  content  with  reforms  at  the  hospital  base, 
Florence  Nightingale  now  set  out  to  inspect  hospitals 
at  the  seat  of  war.  She  made  her  first  visit  to  the  Crimea 
in  May  1855.  Shortly  after  her  arrival,  she  came  down 
with  what  was  called  Crimean  fever.  Even  then,  although 
she  could  not  walk,  she  could  write,  and  write  she  did, 
until  she  became  delirious.  When,  after  many  weeks,  she 
was  well  enough  to  be  moved,  she  refused  to  return  to 
England.  ''I  am  ready  to  stand  out  the  war  with  any 
man,''  she  said. 

On  September  8,  1855,  Sebastopol  fell.  From  this 
date  until  the  end  of  the  war,  Florence  Nightingale 
divided  her  time  between  Scutari  and  Crimea.  In  the 
Crimea  the  work  was  very  hard.  She  spent  whole  days 
in  the  saddle,  or  was  driven  in  a  baggage  cart  over  bleak 
and  rocky  roads.  She  stood  for  hours  in  the  heavily 
falling  snow.  Often  she  did  not  reach  her  hut  until  late 
at  night  after  walking  for  miles  through  perilous  ravines. 

At  last  the  war  came  to  an  end.  Peace  was  signed  in 
Paris  on  March  30,  1856.  Four  months  later  Florence 
Nightingale  sailed  for  England. 


At  Scutari 


16 


HEALTH  HEROES— FLORENCE  NIGHTINGALE 


Florence  Nightingale 


The  Heroine 

During  Florence  Nightingale's  illness  in  the  Crimea, 
all  England  had  held  its  breath. 

When  the  bells  were  ringing  ''Victory!''  after  the 
fall  of  Sebastopol,  the  name  of  Florence  Nightingale 
was  on  every  tongue.  Now  that  she  was  coming  home,  a 
rousing  welcome  was  planned  for  her.  She  was  to  be 
transported  on  a  man-of-war.  Three  military  bands  were 
to  meet  her  at  the  station  and  play  her  home  whenever 
she  might  arrive,  by  day  or  by  night. 

Florence  Nightingale  refused  the  man-of-war.  On 
August  7,  1856,  a  lady  dressed  in  black  entered  the  back 
door  at  Lea  Hurst.  The  old  butler  hastened  to  put  her 
out.  She  lifted  her  veil;  it  was  Miss  Florence.  The 
heroine  had  not  chosen  to  publish  her  time  of  arrival. 

17 


METROPOLITAN  LIFE  INSURANCE  COMPANY 

After  the  War 

Florence  Nightingale  lived  for  more  than  half  a 
century  after  her  return  from  the  Crimea  and  m  all  that 
time  she  practised  the  most  rigid  seclusion  in  order  to 
save  strength  for  her  work.  The  upper  rooms  of  her  house 
in  South  Street,  London,  became  the  center  of  a  network 
of  reform  which  spread  over  the  world. 

In  the  heyday  of  her  usefulness  she,  a  semi-invalid, 
lay  on  her  couch  in  her  upper  room,  writing,  writing, 
writing.  Below  in  the  sitting-room,  great  statesmen, 
famous  generals,  foreign  royalties  begged  for  audiences. 
For  many  years,  the  newly  appointed  Viceroy  to  India 
paid  her  a  visit  before  leaving  for  his  post.  She  had  the 
admiration  of  Queen  Victoria,  who  had  said  when  she 
met  Miss  Nightingale,  ''Such  a  head!  I  wish  we  had 
her  at  the  War  Office.'' 

On  her  return  from  the  Crimea,  her  friends  begged  her 
to  rest.  Rest!  How  could  she?  She  could  never  forget 
the  heroic  dead.  She  could  never  forget  that  many  of 
her  ''children''  were  lying  in  their  forgotten  graves  from 
causes  which  might  have  been  prevented. 

Her  experience  in  the  Crimea,  when  it  was  happening, 
had  been  her  job.  After  it  was  over,  it  had  become  an 
example.  She  said:  "The  sanitary  history  of  the  Crimean 
campaign  .  .  .  is  a  complete  example — history  does  not 
afford  its  equal — of  an  army,  after  a  great  disaster  arising 
from  neglects,  having  been  brought  into  the  highest  state 
of  health  and  efficiency."  Now  was  the  time  to  drive 
home  the  lesson  of  this  example.  With  the  help  of  Sidney 
Herbert,  she  set  out  to  reform  the  Army  Medical 
Service.  She  found  that  even  in  the  army  at  home  the 
death  rate  was  nearly  double  that  of  civil  life.  "You 
might  as  well  take  i,ioo  men  every  year  out  upon 
Salisbury  Plain  and  shoot  them,"  she  said  grimly. 


HEALTH  HEROES— FLORENCE  NIGHTINGALE 

Sanitary  Reform  in  the  Army 

She  met  stubborn  opposition,  but  in  the  end  she 
forced  the  Minister  of  State  for  War  to  appoint  a  com- 
mission  to  report  upon  the  health  of  the  army.  She  her- 
self worked  day  and  night  to  help  the  commission. 

When  the  report  was  finished  the  next  task  was  to 
have  its  recommendations  put  into  effect.  In  the  end  this 
proved  to  be  easy,  as  her  friend,  Sidney  Herbert,  became 
Secretary  of  State  for  War.  The  army  barracks  were  re- 
modeled; the  responsibilities  and  duties  of  Florence 
Nightingale's  old  foe,  the  Purveyor,  were  accurately 
defined.  An  Army  Medical  School  was  established,  and 
the  Army  Medical  Department  was  reorganised  on  the 
principle  that  it  is  as  much  a  part  of  the  duty  of  the 
authorities  to  take  care  of  the  well  soldier  as  it  is  to  take 
care  of  the  sick  soldier.  By  1861,  as  a  direct  result  of  these 
reforms,  the  death  rate  in  the  army  at  home  had  decreased 
by  one-half  since  the  days  of  the  Crimea. 


Balmoral  Castle 


19 


METROPOLITAN  LIFE  INSURANCE  COMPANY 

Reorganization  of  Army  Statistics 

Another  valuable  service  to  the  cause  of  army  reform 
was  the  emphasis  which  Florence  Nightingale  laid  on 
the  reorgani2;ation  of  army  statistics.  She  herself,  who  had 
a  passion  for  statistics,  had  been  exasperated  time  and 
again  with  the  discrepancies  in  official  statistical  returns. 
With  great  skill  she  pointed  the  way  to  a  better  system. 
She  was  greatly  helped  and  encouraged  in  her  reform  of 
army  statistics  by  Dr.  John  Sutherland,  one  of  the  lead- 
ing sanitarians  of  his  day;  by  Dr.  William  Farr,  as 
deeply  interested  in  statistics  as  she;  and  by  Dr.  T. 
Graham  Balfour,  who  was  appointed  head  of  the  sta- 
tistical branch  of  the  Army  Medical  Department.  When 
the  recommendations  of  the  commission  on  army  reform 
were  carried  out,  the  British  Army  statistics  became  the 
best  and  the  most  useful  then  available  in  Europe. 

Sanitary  Reform  in  India 

Florence  Nightingale  was  not  content  with  reforms 
directed  toward  the  health  of  the  army  at  home.  She 
reached  out  to  the  troops  in  India,  and  her  main  work  for 
many  years  has  been  described  as ''Health  Missionary  for 
India.''  After  an  investigation  into  the  existing  sanitary 
conditions  of  the  Indian  army,  a  commission,  appointed  at 
her  suggestion  and  working  with  her  assistance,  did  for 
the  troops  in  India  what  sanitary  reform  had  done  for  the 
army  at  home. 

Her  interests  in  India  spread  from  the  troops  to  the 
natives.  She  worked  in  season  and  out  of  season  for 
sanitary  improvements  in  native  living  conditions  and  for 
irrigation  projects  which  would  free  the  Indian  farmers 
from  their  ever-present  fear  of  famine. 

20 


HEALTH  HEROES— FLORENCE  NIGHTINGALE 


7s[ursing 
School  of 
St.  Thomas 
Hospital 


The  Nurses  Training  School 

While  Florence  Nightingale  was  still  in  the 
Crimea,  a  movement  was  started  to  mark  in  some  public 
manner  the  nation's  appreciation  of  her  services.  It  was 
decided  to  raise  a  fund  for  the  establishment  of  a  training 
school  for  nurses  of  which  Florence  Nightingale  would 
be  the  head.  This  school,  which  was  connected  with  St. 
Thomas's  Hospital  in  London,  was  opened  on  June  24, 
i860,  with  fifteen  probationers.  On  this  modest  scale 
there  was  launched  a  scheme  which  was  destined  to  found 
the  modern  art  and  practice  of  trained  nursing. 

Florence  Nightingale's  own  delicacy  of  observation 
and  fine  nursing  technique  were  indelibly  impressed  on 
the  first  nurses'  training  school.  In  her  book,  ?{otes  on 
?v[ursing,  are  found  the  precepts  which  she  insisted  must 
be  translated  into  action.  The  welfare  and  comfort  of  the 
patient  must  come  first  always.  There  must  be  plenty 
of  sunlight,  proper  ventilation  and  scrupulous  cleanliness 
in  the  sick  room.  The  Nightingale  Training  School 
created  a  new  model  for  nurses  and  the  Js[otes  on  7<lursing 
was  its  gospel. 


21 


METROPOLITAN  LIFE  INSURANCE  COMPANY 


To  Florence  Nightingale,  nursing  was  not  a  profes- 
sion; it  was  a  ''calling."  It  required  a  sound  knowledge  of 
household  hygiene,  some  knov/ledge  of  medicine  and 
surgery,  and  an  acute  and  sympathetic  faculty  of  observa- 
tion. "Merely  looking  at  the  sick  is  not  observing,'' 
Florence  Nightingale  used  to  say. 

Although  she  herself  could  not  take  the  superintend- 
ence of  her  Training  School,  she  kept  in  close  touch  with 
It.  She  worked  out  all  the  practical  details  of  its  admin- 
istration and  saw  to  it  that  they  were  carried  out.  She  was 
anxious  to  have  it  become  a  home  as  well  as  a  school,  "a 
place  of  training  of  character,  habits,  and  intelligence,  as  well 
as  of  acquiring  knowledge.''  She  guided  the  development 
of  the  new  nursing  technique  which  she  had  originated. 
She  was  always  ready  to  give  practical  help  and  advice 
to  the  Matron  and  the  student  nurses. 
Her  good  wishes  and  her  interest  in  their 
welfare  followed  the  Nightingale  nurses 
when  they  left  the  school  to  demon- 
strate to  the  watching  world  her  con- 
ception of  what  a  nurse  should  be. 

It  was  not  Florence  Nightingale's 
desire  that  the  nurses  trained  in  her 
school  should  do  private  nursing.  Her 
nurses,  when  they  had  finished  their 
training,  were  expected  to  take  positions 
in  hospitals,  workhouses,  poorhouses, 
and  other  similar  institutions.  In  this 
way  she  thought  that  her  training  school 
would  be,  in  turn,  the  means  of  training 
elsewhere.  It  was.  The  profession  of 
trained  nursing,  with  its  high  standards 
and  with  the  expansion  into  the  great 
field  of  public  health  nursing,  has  grown 
from  that  beginning.  A  modem  nurse 


11 


HEALTH  HEROES— FLORENCE  NIGHTINGALE 

Hospital  Construction 

The  publication  of  Florence  Nightingale's  7<lotes  on 
Hospitals  in  1859  made  her  a  recognised  authority  on 
hospital  construction.  This  book  opened  a  new  era  in 
hospital  reform.  After  its  publication  she  was  deluged 
with  requests  for  advice  in  the  building  of  new  hospitals 
or  in  the  reconstruction  of  old  ones.  To  her  is  largely- 
due  the  credit  for  whatever  is  good  in  modern  hospital 
design  and  construction. 

So  widespread  was  the  recognition  of  Florence 
Nightingale's  authority  on  questions  relating  to  nursing 
and  hospital  construction  that  she  was  officially  consulted 
by  the  Union  Government  during  the  Civil  War  in  the 
United  States. 

The  Angel  with  a  Flaming  Sword 

Florence  Nightingale  lived  to  be  90  years  old.  Just 
three  years  before  her  death,  she  was  given  the  Order  of 
Merit  by  King  Edward  VII.  This  is  a  very  high  honor. 
It  was  the  first  time  that  it  had  ever  been  bestowed  on  a 
woman.  Congratulations  came  pouring  in  on  Florence 
Nightingale  from  all  sides.  The  longer  she  lived,  the 
greater  became  her  fame.  In  the  popular  imagination,  to 
the  day  of  her  death,  she  was  the  Lady  of  the  Lamp, 
the  Angel  of  the  Crimea,  the  tender  woman  whose 
shadow  the  soldiers  kissed  as  it  fell  on  their  pillows.  But 
to  those  with  whom  she  worked  during  and  after  the 
Crimean  War,  she  was  an  angel  with  a  flaming  sword. 
Her  mind  was  the  sword — hard,  sharp,  brilliant.  Pas- 
sionately  she  used  it  to  do  battle  for  those  whom  she  saw 
suffering  needlessly.  Ruthlessly  she  bared  the  easy-going 
inefficiency  which  hitherto  had  made  a  disgrace  of  sanita- 
tion  and  nursing,  both  in  military  and  civil  life.  Without 
sentiment,  she  pointed  out  the  remedies  and  worked 
ceaselessly  for  their  adoption. 

23 


METROPOLITAN  LIFE  INSURANCE  COMPANY 

Her  spectacular  experience  in  the  Crimea  was  to 
Florence  Nightingale  only  one  incident  of  the  life  work 
she  had  chosen.  Yet  what  thrills,  what  splendor,  what 
dreams  of  service  it  meant  to  the  children  and  young 
women  of  her  day !  Through  her  heroism,  nursing  became 
glorified.  She  lifted  it  from  its  lowly  state  to  that  of  one 
of  the  greatest  professions  which  woman  can  follow.  It 
has  been  said  that ''no  woman  who  was  not  canoni2,ed,  or 
who  had  not  worn  (or  been  deprived  of)  a  crown,  has  ever 
excited  among  her  sex  so  much  passionate  and  affectionate 
admiration,  and  set  so  many  an  example  as  Florence 
Nightingale.'' 


REFERENCES 

The  Life  of  Florence  7V(ightingale,  2  Volumes,  by  Sir  Edward  T.  Cook, 
Macmillan  and  Company,  London,  191 3. 

"Florence  Nightingale,"  in  Eminent  Victorians,  by  Lytton  Strachey, 
G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons,  New  York,  191 8. 

J^otes  on  Hospitals,  by  Florence  Nightingale.  Printed  in  Transac' 
tions  of  National  Association  for  the  Promotion  of  Social 
Science,  1858. 

Nfites  on  J<[ursing,  by  Florence  Nightingale.  D.  Appleton  and 
Company,  New  York  and  London,  1924. 

Florence  Nightingale  as  Statistician,  by  Edwin  W.  Kopf.  Reprinted 
from  the  Quarterly  Publications  of  the  American  Statistical 
Association,  December,  1916. 


24 


p  F  M. — PRINTED  IN  U.S.A. — (e)  466  L.W.  (Edition  Jan.  1948 > 


